Description

Great Battles of WWII: Stalingrad is a World War II real-time strategy game with a focus on historical authenticity. There are 43 missions (including 7 hidden ones) based on real attacking and defending maneuvers during the Stalingrad battle. Every single battle scenario is modeled after real events.

The missions have been divided over a German and a Russian campaign, starting from an early Wehrmacht offensive at the outskirts of a town, and ending with the surrender of the Nazi troops to the Red Army on the central square - covering major events from June 1942 till January 1943. The Germans march on Stalingrad while the Russian forces need to liberate the city and destroy the 6th Army of Wehrmacht. Terrain and buildings were reconstructed using pre-war photos, since much of the city was destroyed during bombing, due to artillery strikes and street fights.

The player commands his forces through famous locations, such as Mamayev Kurgan, Pavlov's House and the Red October Steel Factory. The more than 150 units - tanks, self-propelled artillery, guns and aircraft have been modeled after the real units at the time. Uncommon models of construction were also incorporated, such as modifications of T-34 tanks built in different factories.

Stalingrad uses the game engine from Blitzkrieg, where 3D landscapes and vehicles merge with sprite soldiers, buildings and other objects. It was slightly modified, for instance solving the known Blitzkrieg bug where, even after the patches, units could shoot through the buildings when an enemy was in visible target range.

The units' characteristics are based on real-life values and were not altered in favor of easy or artificially balanced gameplay (though there is an "easy" mode available). Since there is not much space to maneuver around the city borders, air combat is limited to only attack ground forces. In contrast to Blitzkrieg, the fighters have been removed and the accuracy of the AA guns has been decreased.

The game's music does not contain classic war marches. Instead, it was designed by the Russian metal-dub band Skafandr.